782 entries categorized "Iran"

May 10, 2016

The Washington Post reports Iran’s defense minister on Tuesday announced the delivery of a powerful S-300 air-defense missile system from Russia as part of an arms deal that was revived after the Islamic republic reached a framework nuclear agreement with world powers last year. Iranian Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehghan said at least one S-300 system, often compared to the U.S. Patriot surface-to-air missile system, has been delivered to the Khatam al-Anbiya base, Iranian state news agencies reported. Russian officials have said they plan to deliver at least four of the missile defense systems by the end of the year.

May 02, 2016

Al Jazeera reports South Korea and Iran are expected to sign several trade deals worth billions of dollars and discuss sensitive subjects like North Korea following President Park Geun-hye's arrival in Tehran with a large group of business leaders. Iran's official state news agency IRNA said that more than 230 business executives accompanied Park who, along with several ministers, met Iran's President Hassan Rouhani on Monday and held meetings with Iranian officials. Park asked for Iran's help in implementing UN Security Council resolutions calling for the nuclear disarmament of the Korean peninsula.

April 21, 2016

The New York Time reports Iran reacted furiously on Thursday to a United States Supreme Court ruling that Iran’s central bank must pay nearly $2 billion to American victims of terrorist attacks, calling the ruling thievery and a new threat to any improvement in relations. A spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Hossein Jaberi Ansari, said in a statement quoted by state media that the court’s ruling on Wednesday was a mockery of international law and “amounts to appropriation of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s property.”

April 20, 2016

BBC News reports the Supreme Court is allowing the families of victims of a 1983 bombing in Beirut and other terror attacks to collect nearly $2 billion in frozen Iranian assets. The court ruled in favor of more than 1,300 relatives of the 241 U.S. service members killed at a Marine barracks. The U.S. government holds the Lebanese Shia Islamist movement Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, responsible. Both Hezbollah and Iran have denied any involvement. Iran's central bank, Bank Markazi, tried to defy court orders demanding payment for losses. It opposed a law that directs its U.S. assets be turned over to the families.

April 11, 2016

Reuters reports the Syrian army was on Monday reported to be sending reinforcements to Aleppo, where renewed fighting is threatening a fragile truce in the run-up to the next round of peace talks. Underlining the conflict's regional dimensions, Iranian media announced the first deaths of members of its regular army in Syria, a week after Tehran said army commandos had been deployed in support of Damascus. Iran's military support has so far mostly been provided by the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.

April 07, 2016

The Washington Post reports the findings of the Navy’s investigation into how 10 U.S. sailors were detained by Iranian forces after drifting into the country’s territorial waters have been forwarded to the service’s top officers, moving the U.S. military closer to disclosing more details about the case. The incident has been under investigation since the sailors were taken captive off Farsi Island in the Persian Gulf on Jan. 12 after their two riverine command boats were surrounded at gunpoint by members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard navy. The sailors were released the following morning after Iran took a series of photographs and videos, whose subsequent release angered Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter and prompted allegations by the Navy that the sailors had been exploited for Iranian propaganda purposes.

April 05, 2016

Reuters reports a senior U.S. State Department official on Tuesday reassured worried lawmakers that the Obama administration is not planning to allow Iran access to the U.S. financial system or use of the U.S. dollar for transactions. "The rumors and news that have appeared in the press ... are not true," Thomas Shannon, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.During the hearing, some lawmakers said they remained concerned, despite Shannon's strong denial of such reports, because of comments they see as ambiguous, such as his statement that the administration was open to discussing renewal of the Iran Sanctions Act if it does not conflict with the international nuclear agreement announced in July.

April 04, 2016

The Washington Post reports the U.S. Navy has confiscated a cache of weapons that it believes was being transported from Iran to Houthi rebels in Yemen, marking at least the third time in two months that such a shipment was stopped, Navy officials said. Naval forces aboard the USS Sirocco, a coastal patrol ship, intercepted and seized the weapons March 28 from a small craft commonly known as a dhow in the Arabian Sea, the Navy announced Monday. The cache included about 1,500 Kalashnikov rifles, 200 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 21 .50-caliber machine guns, the Navy said.

March 24, 2016

Reuters reports the U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted two Iranian companies on Thursday for supporting Iran's ballistic missile program and also sanctioned two British businessmen it said were helping an airline used by the country's Revolutionary Guards. The United States blacklisted Shahid Nuri Industries and Shahid Movahed Industries, cutting them off from international finance. It said they were working for Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group (SHIG), which the United States says is responsible for Iran's ballistic missile program. A nuclear deal signed in July by Iran, the United States and other world powers left a number of differences unresolved. The Obama administration on Thursday announced the indictment of seven Iranians for a coordinated campaign of cyber attacks on dozens of U.S. banks and a New York dam between 2011 and 2013.

The Washington Post reports the Justice Department on Thursday announced it has indicted seven hackers associated with the Iranian government and charged them with cybercrimes. The crimes include disrupting U.S. banks’ public websites from late 2011 through May 2013 and with breaking into a small dam in Rye, N.Y., in an apparent attempt to stop its operation. The indictment marks the first time the government is charging people linked to a national government with disrupting or attempting to disrupt critical U.S. infrastructure or computer systems of key industries such as finance and water.

March 16, 2016

The Hill reports the U.S. Navy’s top military officer testified Tuesday that Iran violated international law by collecting information from 10 U.S. sailors detained earlier this year. Adm. John Richardson's comments followed claims by Iranian state media that thousands of pages of information were collected during the incident. “They should not have been seized,” Richardson, chief of naval operations, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Iranian state TV quoted Gen. Ali Razmjou as saying that about 13,000 pages worth of information was retrieved from laptops, GPS devices and maps, according to The Associated Press.

March 15, 2016

The Associated Press reports Iran's foreign minister said Tuesday that he had deliberately negotiated the wording of the latest United Nations resolution restraining his country's nuclear program to ensure that the test-firing of nuclear-capable Iranian missiles would be legal. Mohammad Javad Zarif said in a speech at the Australian National University that Security Council Resolution 2231, which was adopted after the Iranian nuclear deal was signed last year, did not bar Iran from testing the type of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles that it launched last week.

March 14, 2016

Reuters reports the United States on Monday vowed to continue pushing for United Nations Security Council action on Iran's recent ballistic missile tests and accused Russia of looking for reasons not to respond to Iranian violations of a U.N. resolution. "This merits a council response," U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power told reporters after a closed-door meeting of the 15-nation Security Council convened at Washington's request. "Russia seems to be lawyering its way to look for reasons not to act," she said. "We're not going to give up at the Security Council, no matter the quibbling that we heard today about this and that."

March 03, 2016

The New York Times reports even as Iran and Saudi Arabia supported opposite sides in a bitter and bloody proxy war in Syria, the two adversaries managed to preserve a tense calm just over the border in Lebanon, where they have long competed for influence.Now, suddenly, it looks as if Saudi Arabia is walking away — leaving Lebanon perhaps more firmly than ever in the grip of Hezbollah and its patron, Iran. Instead of vying behind the scenes to counter Iran, as it has for decades, the kingdom has taken to punishing Lebanon for Hezbollah’s siding with Iran in Syria.

February 26, 2016

Reuters reports Iran briefly exceeded a limit set by a deal with major powers under which sanctions against it were lifted, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday, but Tehran then came back within the permitted bounds. Under its July deal with the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany, Iran is allowed to have 130 tonnes of heavy water, a moderator in reactors like the one it has disabled at Arak and a chemical it produces itself. "On 17 February, the agency verified that Iran’s stock of heavy water had reached 130.9 metric tonnes," the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which polices the deal, said in a regular report on Iran's nuclear program sent to its member states. By Wednesday, however, 20 tonnes of heavy water had been shipped out of the country, bringing the stock back under the threshold of 130 tonnes. .

February 17, 2016

The New York Times reports in the early years of the Obama administration, the United States developed an elaborate plan for a cyberattack on Iran in case the diplomatic effort to limit its nuclear program failed and led to a military conflict, according to a coming documentary film and interviews with military and intelligence officials involved in the effort. The plan, code-named Nitro Zeus, was devised to disable Iran’s air defenses, communications systems and crucial parts of its power grid, and was shelved, at least for the foreseeable future, after the nuclear deal struck between Iran and six other nations last summer was fulfilled.

February 08, 2016

Reuters reports five Iranian-American groups wrote to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry last week, urging him to work for the release of an Iranian-American businessman who has been detained in Iran since October. The letter, delivered on Friday, said there was no evidence to justify the detention of Siamak Namazi, who was "left behind" in the wake of a U.S.-Iran prisoner deal that saw other Americans released from Iranian jails last month.

February 03, 2016

Reuters reports British Airways will resume direct flights from London to Tehran from July, renewing links with the Iranian capital after sanctions were lifted. The British airline followed Air France-KLM in confirming its intention to restart flights to Tehran after Iran curbed its nuclear program in return for the lifting of U.S., EU and United Nations sanctions in January. The deal has sparked hopes that Iran could secure a wave of foreign investment for the country of 80 million people after President Hassan Rouhani visited Europe last week. Owned by IAG, BA will initially run six flights per week before moving to daily flights from winter 2016, departing from London's Heathrow Airport.

January 29, 2016

Reuters reports an unarmed Iranian drone flew directly over a U.S. aircraft carrier operating in international waters in the Gulf this month in a move that was "abnormal and unprofessional," the U.S. military said on Friday. Iranian state television said a surveillance drone flew over a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Gulf and took "precise" pictures during an Iranian naval drill on Friday. But a U.S. Navy spokeswoman only confirmed an incident on Jan. 12, when an unarmed Iranian drone flew directly over the U.S.S. Harry S. Truman. She could not confirm if it was the same incident reported by Iranian media.

January 21, 2016

Reuters reports worsening enmity between rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran is jeopardizing peace prospects in Yemen where a nine-month-old war has given Islamist militants a foothold in Riyadh's backyard. Yemen's principal warring factions -- fighters loyal to the ousted Saudi-backed Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi who are battling the Iran-allied Houthi militia and loyalists of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh -- held talks last month in Switzerland to try to end a war that has killed some 6,000 people. They were due to meet again on Jan. 14 in a bid to seal a lasting peace. But the Riyadh government cut diplomatic ties with Shi'ite Iran in a row sparked by Saudi Arabia's execution of Saudi Shi'ite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr on Jan. 2.

January 19, 2016

The Associated Press reports Iran successfully transferred some of the billions of dollars' worth of frozen overseas assets following the implementation of the nuclear deal with world powers, the head of the country's central bank said Tuesday. But ordinary Iranians are still waiting to see how their daily lives will improve and how fast Iranian companies will gain access to financial markets worldwide. Credit cards still don't work in the Islamic Republic and its ATM machines remain separated from the rest of the world. That is not likely to change soon as many of the world's major financial services companies operate in the United States.

January 14, 2016

Reuters reports the Pentagon said Thursday the 10 U.S. sailors who were held by Iran before being released on Wednesday had made a navigational mistake that led them into Iranian waters. "The information that they have given us, and through their commanders is that they did stray accidentally into Iranian waters due to a navigation error," U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in an interview with Spanish-language broadcaster Univision in Miami. "So that seems to be the original cause of this, according to the interviews that we have done." Carter's comments were the most detailed so far from American officials on the incident, which rattled nerves just before the expected implementation of a landmark nuclear deal between Iran and world powers.

January 13, 2016

Reuters reports Iran has removed the calandria, or central vessel, of its nuclear reactor at Arak, and it will be filled with concrete within hours, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday. "Just yesterday, the foreign minister (of Iran) reported to me that the calandria of the plutonium nuclear reactor is now out and in the next hours it will be filled with concrete and destroyed," Kerry said. The removal of the calandria is a key part of last year's Iran nuclear deal.

The New York Times reports Iran’s release of 10 United States Navy sailors on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after they were detained on the Persian Gulf, is being hailed in both countries as a sign that their relations have evolved since the signing of the nuclear accord last summer. Secretary of State John Kerry thanked the Iranians “for their cooperation in swiftly resolving this matter” and suggested in a statement that the quick resolution of the issue was a product of the nearly daily back-and-forth that now takes place between Washington and Tehran, after three decades of hostility and stony silence.

January 12, 2016

The New York Times reports an Iranian nuclear official on Tuesday denied a report that technicians had removed the core of the country’s only heavy-water reactor and poured concrete into the cavity, a final step toward the completion of the historic nuclear agreement in July and the lifting of sanctions on Iran. The official, Ali Asghar Zarean, Iran’s deputy nuclear chief, told state television that a report about the Arak reactor by the semiofficial Fars News Agency on Monday was baseless. He added that Iran planned to sign an agreement next week with China to modify the reactor, which is capable of producing the plutonium needed to build an atomic weapon.

January 11, 2016

BBC News reports Iran has removed the core of its Arak heavy-water nuclear reactor and filled it with cement, according to the country's official news agency Fars. The fate of the reactor was one of the toughest sticking points in Iran's long nuclear negotiations last year. Under the terms of the deal, Iran agreed the heavy-water reactor would be reconfigured so it was not capable of yielding material for a nuclear weapon. The removal of the core is one of the final steps required by the deal. It will bring Iran closer to the relief from economic sanctions negotiated in exchange for changes to its nuclear industry.

January 08, 2016

The New York Times reports as the Middle East has descended into bitter sectarian conflict in recent years, Turkey has tried to remain above the fray, posing as an honest broker and peacemaker. Increasingly, though, it is being drawn into the fray, and its preferred status as disinterested peacemaker is slowly becoming untenable. Late Thursday, for example, Turkey said it had summoned the Iranian ambassador to register its objections to reports in Iran’s state-controlled news media linking a visit by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, late last month to the kingdom’s execution of a Shiite cleric.

January 07, 2016

The New York Times reports Iran accused Saudi Arabia on Thursday of an aerial attack on its embassy in Sana, the capital of Yemen, escalating a conflict between the rivals that has put the region on edge, although witnesses said the building was not hit. The attack, on Wednesday night, was said to have occurred as the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen carried out its heaviest airstrikes in months over Sana. But guards at the Iranian Embassy and witnesses said the mission itself had not been bombed. Witnesses said the airstrike hit a home across the street from the embassy, a residence that was said to belong to a son of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former president who was overthrown in 2012.

January 06, 2016

The New York Times reports Iraq’s foreign minister on Wednesday offered to mediate the fight raging between Saudi Arabia and Iran over the Saudi government’s execution of a dissident Shiite cleric, saying that “we need to stop the escalations.” The foreign minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, made his comments at a news conference in Tehran. They appeared to reflect fears in Iraq that the conflict between the Sunni monarchy of Saudi Arabia and the Shiite government of Iran could aggravate sectarian tensions at home, at a time when the Iraqi government is counting on the cooperation of Sunni and Shiite forces to defeat the Islamic State.

January 05, 2016

The New York Times reports a commander of Iran’s hard-line military group on Tuesday condemned the storming of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran as an “ugly, unjustifiable act,” but the country’s president said it should not distract from Saudi Arabia’s execution of a dissident Shiite cleric. The commander, Brig. Gen. Mohsen Kazemeini of the Tehran unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, called the attack on the embassy, as well as one on the Saudi Consulate in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city, “totally wrong.” His statement — the most prominent so far by a representative of the hard-line security forces — was the latest indication of the fallout from the street violence on Saturday that followed the execution of the cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.

Reuters reports Iran unveiled a new underground missile depot on Tuesday with state television showing Emad precision-guided missiles in store which the United States says can take a nuclear warhead and violate a 2010 U.N. Security Council resolution. The defiant move to publicize Iran's missile program seemed certain to irk the United States as it plans to dismantle nearly all sanctions on Iran under a breakthrough nuclear agreement. Tasnim news agency and state television video said the underground facility, situated in mountains and run by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, was inaugurated by the speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani. Release of one-minute video followed footage of another underground missile depot last October.

January 04, 2016

Reuters reports at least two Sunni Muslim mosques have been attacked in Iraq and two people killed in apparent retaliation for the execution of a senior Shi'ite cleric in Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, officials and police said on Monday.Iraqi Shi'ites protesting the Jan. 2 execution of Saudi Shi'ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr separately marched in Baghdad and in southern cities, calling for a boycott of Saudi products and severing ties with the Sunni-ruled kingdom.Iraq's Interior Ministry confirmed the attacks on Sunni mosques late Sunday in Hilla, around 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi blamed them on "Daesh (Islamic State) and those who are similar to them," without further explanation.

The New York Times reports three Sunni-led countries joined Saudi Arabia on Monday in severing or downgrading diplomatic ties with Iran, worsening a geopolitical conflict with sectarian dimensions in one of the world’s most volatile regions. The diplomatic protests from the three countries — Bahrain, Sudan and the United Arab Emirates — came as Iran accused Saudi Arabia of using an attack on the Saudi Embassy in Tehran two days earlier as a pretext for diverting attention from its problems. Iranian protesters ransacked and set fire to the embassy on Saturday, along with the Saudi Consulate in Iran’s second-largest city, Mashhad, after the Saudis executed a Shiite cleric who had criticized the Sunni kingdom’s treatment of its Shiite minority. The Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, was among 47 people who were executed.

December 15, 2015

Reuters reports the medium-range Emad rocket that Iran tested in October was a ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, which makes it a violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution, a team of sanctions monitors said in a confidential new report. The conclusion of the council's Panel of Experts on Iran will likely lead to calls for expanding sanctions against Tehran in Washington and some other Western capitals. The White House said on Tuesday that it would not rule out additional steps against Tehran over the missile test. "On the basis of its analysis and findings the Panel concludes that Emad launch is a violation by Iran of paragraph 9 of Security Council resolution 1929," the panel said in its report.

November 24, 2015

Reuters reports Iran expects a deal it reached with world powers in July, under which sanctions will be lifted in return for it scaling down its nuclear program, to be implemented at the start of next year, Iranian nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi said on Tuesday. "We expect early January," Araqchi told reporters after meeting the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is tasked with verifying whether Iran is keeping its commitments under the deal. Iran is holding parliamentary elections on Feb. 26 and diplomats say Tehran has been working hard to fulfill its commitments under the nuclear deal before that date.

November 23, 2015

Reuters reports Iran's supreme leader, at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Tehran, said on Monday U.S. policies in the Middle East region were a threat to both countries and called for closer ties between Tehran and Moscow. The civil war in Syria has evolved into a wider proxy struggle between global powers, with Russia and Iran supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while Western powers, Turkey and Gulf Arab states want him out. A Kremlin spokesman was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying that Putin and Khamenei had agreed at their talks that global powers should not impose their political will on Syria.

November 18, 2015

Reuters reports Iran has disconnected almost a quarter of its uranium-enriching centrifuges in less than a month, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday, suggesting it is racing to implement an agreement restricting its nuclear activities. Under the July deal, sanctions against Iran will be lifted in exchange for measures including slashing the number of centrifuges in operation and reducing its stockpile of uranium. Officials have been speculating about the speed at which Iran can dismantle the centrifuges, sensitive machines that spin at supersonic speeds to purify uranium to levels at which it can be used as fuel in power stations or, potentially, weapons.

November 13, 2015

The New York Times reports Iran’s president was sharply criticized by hard-liners during Friday Prayer and again on television on Friday in what is becoming an increasingly tense standoff over the future of Iran after the signing of the nuclear deal during the summer. The president, Hassan Rouhani, is insisting that the nuclear agreement can be the start of new relations with the Islamic republic’s traditional ideological enemy, the United States. He repeated on Thursday that each country could even open an embassy in the other if the United States would apologize for mistakes it had made in the 36 years since the Iranian revolution.

November 10, 2015

Reuters reports Iran has stopped dismantling centrifuges in two uranium enrichment plants, state media reported on Tuesday, days after conservative lawmakers complained to President Hassan Rouhani that the process was too rushed. Last week, Iran announced it had begun shutting down inactive centrifuges at the Natanz and Fordow plants under the terms of a deal struck with world powers in July that limits its nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions. Iran's hardliners continue to resist and undermine the nuclear deal, which was forged by moderates they oppose and which they see as a capitulation to the West. "The (dismantling) process stopped with a warning," Ali Shamkhani, Secretary of the National Security Council, was quoted as saying by the ISNA student news agency.

November 09, 2015

The New York Times reports Russia’s most senior arms executive said Monday that a contract to supply Iran with powerful S-300 air defense missiles was now active. But with no delivery date or any other details, the announcement seemed aimed more at warding off an Iranian lawsuit than a major step toward delivery of the weapon system. Sergei V. Chemezov, Russia’s chief arms trade executive, made the announcement at an air show in Dubai, Russian news agencies reported. “The contract to deliver the S-300 was not only signed by both sides, but has already come into force,” Chemezov was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency.

The New York Times reports President Obama on Monday said it was time for him and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to move beyond their “strong disagreement” over the Iran nuclear deal and work together on confronting Iranian misbehavior and bolstering Israel’s security, as the two leaders had their first encounter since their feud over the agreement brought their relationship to a bitter low. “It’s no secret that the prime minister and I have had a strong disagreement on this narrow issue,” said Obama, seated beside Netanyahu in the Oval Office at the start of the meeting, their first in more than a year. “But we don’t have a disagreement on the need to making sure Iran does not get a nuclear weapon, and we don’t have a disagreement about us blunting destabilizing activities in Iran that may be taking place,” he added. “And so, we’re going to be looking to make sure we find common ground there.”

November 04, 2015

Reuters reports as Iran's government promises a new age of prosperity after sanctions, many Iranians are hoping for the best. But the security establishment, with an eye to its political survival, is very publicly preparing for the worst. The armed forces have loudly advertised developments to Iran's missile deterrent and other defense capabilities, proclaiming they are still prepared for an attack by the Islamic Republic's enemies. The increase in martial messaging, which analysts say is aimed both at Iran's enemies abroad and political moderates at home, has alarmed Israel and Gulf Arab countries which are wary of Iran's ambitions in the Middle East.

November 03, 2015

Reuters reports Iranian authorities have arrested an American-Lebanese man who they was linked to the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, state broadcaster IRIB said on Tuesday. It named the man as Nizar Zakka, an IT expert who Lebanese media reported last week had disappeared on Sept. 18 after attending a conference in Tehran. The report, which cited informed sources, is the first official confirmation of his arrest. "Nizar Zakka has deep ties to the U.S. intelligence and military establishment," IRIB quoted an unnamed source as saying. There have also been reports that Iran has arrested U.S.-Iranian citizen Siamak Namazi, a Dubai-based businessman who disappeared in mid-October while visiting family in Iran. Reuters has not been able to confirm those reports.

November 02, 2015

Reuters reports Iran said on Monday it would quit Syria peace talks if it found them unconstructive, citing the "negative role" of Saudi Arabia, in the latest twist in a spat between the regional rivals that bodes ill for efforts to ease turmoil across the Middle East. Increasingly bad-tempered exchanges between the conservative Sunni-ruled kingdom and the revolutionary Shi'ite theocracy have dampened hopes of improved ties after the adversaries sat down for their first meeting to discuss the Syria war last week. "In the first round of talks, some countries, especially Saudi Arabia, played a negative and unconstructive role … Iran will not participate if the talks are not fruitful," ISNA cited deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian as saying.

The New York Times reports Iran has started decommissioning the first of thousands of centrifuges used for enriching uranium as part of its commitments under the nuclear deal reached with global powers, the head of Iran’s nuclear energy program was quoted as saying during a visit to Japan on Monday. The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, told the Kyodo News agency that Iran had started preliminary work, referring to centrifuges and other steps. The entire process will “take some time,” said Salehi, who is also a vice president, a former foreign minister and a member of the nuclear negotiating team.

October 28, 2015

The New York Times reports Iran has accepted an invitation to join talks with the United States and Russia this week on a possible political resolution to the Syrian civil war, state news media reported on Wednesday. The talks would be Secretary of State John Kerry’s first formal negotiations with Tehran on issues beyond the nuclear accord reached in July. The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, and his Russian counterpart, Sergey V. Lavrov, discussed the talks, which will be held in Vienna, in phone conversations on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, the semiofficial ISNA agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Marziyeh Afkham, as saying.

October 22, 2015

Reuters reports the United States, Britain, France and Germany sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council's Iran sanctions committee on Wednesday notifying it of Tehran's recent missile test and demanded action in response to what they said was a violation. The letter, which was sent to the committee by the United States on behalf of the four countries, said the launch was in breach of Security Council resolutions and reiterated that the ballistic missile was "inherently capable of delivering a nuclear weapon." "We trust that this information will assist the Committee in its responsibility to examine and take appropriate action in response to violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions," said the letter, which was seen by Reuters.

October 21, 2015

Al Jazeera reports Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has endorsed a landmark nuclear deal reached with world powers, but warned against "ambiguities" in the agreement. Khamenei, who has the final say on all major Iranian policies, backed the deal in a letter to President Hassan Rouhani that was read on state TV on Wednesday. Until now he had publicly declined to approve or reject the deal while expressing support for Iran's negotiators.

October 19, 2015

Reuters reports Iran's nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi said on Monday he expected a deal with six world powers on shrinking Tehran's atomic program in exchange for sanctions relief to be implemented by year-end. "Hopefully before the end of this year certainly we would have the implementation day," Araqchi told reporters after meeting senior officials from the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Germany and France in Vienna. The United States and the European Union took formal legal steps on Sunday that will lift sanctions once Iran meets certain conditions such as reducing the number of centrifuges used to enrich uranium, and its enriched uranium stockpile.

October 16, 2015

Reuters reports the United States has confirmed that Iran tested a medium-range missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon in "clear violation" of a United Nations Security Council ban on ballistic missile tests, a senior U.S. official said on Friday. "The United States is deeply concerned about Iran's recent ballistic missile launch," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said in a statement. "After reviewing the available information, we can confirm that Iran launched on Oct. 10 a medium-range ballistic missile inherently capable of delivering a nuclear weapon," she said. "This was a clear violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929."